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Saturday, 7 April 2018

Swimmer's ear + our week

I have always kind of prided myself in being not busy. Like, I always try to say no to doing extra stuff because I value down time and I am so not ambitious in a lot of ways. Anyway, being parents of two and business owners and the million other hats we wear these days is intense. This week has been crazy.

On Sunday, after a super busy but awesome Easter weekend with family, I started to have a little ear ache. Nothing crazy, but I've had a few ear infections before (like everyone), so I felt like that's where it was heading. By midnight I was in tears calling 811, talking to a registered nurse. On Monday, a holiday, I went to the ER (we have slim picking for clinics in our area on holidays), where the doctor diagnosed me with swimmer's ear, gave me ear drops, and told me I could take tylenol, and sent me home. I had never heard of swimmer's ear, but it sounded like no big deal, and I was kind of embarrassed to have wasted the time of the ER for something called swimmer's ear.

I was useless all day Monday, just laying on the floor of our living room in so much pain. By the evening, I was a mess. I was like, Jon, I can't go on like this for one more day! So dramatic. The pain was 10/10 for sure. I called 811 again, and the nurse was so good and calming, and told me to start taking ibuprofen too and use a hot compress on my ear. I was like, ok, I can do that. The ibuprofen took my pain down to a 4/10 with the tylenol, and I was relatively ok. I booked in with my family physician for the Friday. I was like, ok, I can make it three more days. NOPE. By Wednesday I was a mess again. The tylenol + advil at the maximum dose was not doing much for my pain, and I just could not imagine living like this for another day. I hadn't slept in two days and I couldn't chew anymore. I also couldn't hear from that ear. So crazy. Jon called our doctor and was like, I think you need to see Jess now. My amazing doctor got me in right away, and he said he couldn't really see in my ear because it was so swollen. He got me booked in to the ENT the Thursday morning (two days ago). He gave me naproxen to get through the night, which was AMAZING. I have never had that stuff before, but it helped so much with my pain.

At the ENT he looked in, told me there was lots of gunk and pus, and vacuumed it out. I felt nothing because the naproxen is just so good. I felt really numb. Today, I have only a little pain (maybe 1 or 2/10). Miracle. I feel so bad for people who live with chronic pain. This week is such a blur. So the ENT has to see me again next week to make sure things are ok, but I am cured. Swimmer's ear, I am done with you. PS: The ENT said we will never know why I got it. It's not always due to being in the water.

Then on Friday our little Will had his first oral immunotherapy appointment at our allergy clinic. The allergy doctor first went over the blood work, which showed that Will was allergic to peanuts but not so crazy that we can't try to desensitize him. I think his number was 0.15 and the number above which they can't help is 0.34. So They mixed the applesauce I had brought with peanut dust, fed him some, and sent us back to the waiting room for a while. We did that three times, and the only thing that happened is he got a rash on his back which is no big deal. He also coughed twice, which had the nurse running over to us, but I think it was just a coincidence.

We were hanging out at the clinic for a few hours, which is pretty long for a 6 month old. He did great, and impressed all the other people in the waiting room with his crawling skills. Now we have to feed him the peanut dust/applesauce combo each day and watch him carefully for 30 minutes with the epipen right there. My nerves!!! The doctor thinks it will probably take 6-12 months, during which we have to feed him the peanut dust every day, and we have to increase the dose at the clinic every two weeks. Basically our schedule looks crazy every week now with all these appointments.

So grateful to live in this place that has specialists 15 minutes away. And I'm so grateful for pain medication. And that this week is over.